#JusticeforSSR crusaders to BJP members, accounts on the app dabble in everything from national pride, religious hate, to a lot of conspiracy theories.
I spent 48 hours on Atmanirbhar Bharat’s own Koo to get a taste of the new social media Kurukshetra. But unlike Twitter, it is no battleground, but just an echo chamber so far.
With more than 3 million users, Koo, however, is no joke, even if its name sounds like one.
The Indian social media knockoff, with its rather sad ‘sone ki chidiya’ icon, Koo is everything Twitter is not. And yet, it is also exactly like Twitter. An important distinction is that you ‘koo’ instead of tweet, and that too in up to 400 characters. The ballpark of avian references is rather persistent in this field, it seems.
An alternate reality
When I joined the app, to figure out what the fuss is about, I encountered its shady-looking privacy policy that was frankly enough to send anyone packing. As indicated by some reports, and what I saw myself, Koo stores all your personal data including name, age, marital status (why?), device location, etc. But they do say curiosity killed the cat, or in this case any hopes of data privacy.
Screengrab from Koo app | Rachel John
Then, the top recommendations on the app were Republic TV, and Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Amit Malviya and Piyush Goyal.
Screengrab from Koo app | Rachel John
From then on, venturing into the app was like entering an alternate reality where certain users got their wish to ban voices that they disagreed with from Twitter. It is as if you are speaking and every single person in the room is nodding. No one disagrees and everything is shiny and beautiful on this Truman show.
The most popular accounts (kooers?) are named ‘The VedicRing of Fire’, ‘The Frustrated Indian’, ‘VedicKeeda’, and so on. And as the names suggest, these accounts represent quite an interesting amalgamation of extreme national pride, religious hate, and a lot of conspiracy theories.
Koo users can be broadly categorised into three groups:
The first is the Sushant Singh Rajput justice crusaders who seem to have migrated to the app after being steadily ignored everywhere else. Hashtags like #JusticeforSSR and #CBIPunishSSRKillers are quite common. And their dedication for the cause is so real that one account is even named ‘Any SSRians here?’
The second is the deshbhakt users. They koo every newspaper article, report, video and WhatsApp forward about Bharat and its ‘aatmanirbharta‘. These include die-hard fans of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress haters. There are constant evocations of Jawaharlal Nehru to blame him for everything, and Rahul Gandhi is also regularly called ‘pappu’ because there are hardly any Congress backers on the forum to challenge their remarks. But the defining principle all around is ‘hate all’ — Twitter, liberals, and secular-minded people. But without the target audience present there, it just feels like all the darts are just flying blind without gravity in a spaceship.
The third set includes Union ministers who are kooing about their work as usual. As if this bright yellow knockoff is the perfect substitute for Twitter, and I’m sure for some of them it really is. BJP IT cell in-charge Amit Malviya took full advantage of the 400 character limit to lecture Twitter on how it cannot “arrogate itself the right to sit in judgment”. Malviya’s koo was liked over 3,000 times and was ‘re-kooed’ more than 600 times.
The app is also rather persistent about its own Indian image and pride, down to the ‘voice of India’ claim on its homepage. Every time you open the app, it flashes the sign ‘made with pride in India’. And every second tweet from almost any popular account you may follow includes a mention of India, Atmanirbhar Bharat, proud Indian, Indian Army, and others.
You get the trend.
Giving Twitter competition
All of this is precisely why Koo can give Twitter stiff competition in India. It is basically the social media site that every hardcore, patriotic Bharatiya citizen ever wanted. And we all know there is no shortage of those on Twitter.
Koo was founded in March 2020 by Bengaluru-based Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka. It also won the AatmaNirbhar App Innovation Challenge organised by the government in August 2020.
According to its founder, “Koo is a platform that was formed to bring the voice of the Indian language speaker online. We truly believe in freedom of speech…In cases of life threat whether it is self-harm or threat to several lives we will abide by the law of land and will be the same irrespective of the govt in power.”
Now with the kerfuffle between the Modi government and Twitter in full swing, this principle has persuaded a lot of people.
There is a rather deliberate ecosystem being created on Koo, to break that other 70-year-old Nehruvian ecosystem. And if one is not remotely interested in any of the above, it is not the place for you.
Twitter and governments: A tale
Twitter has always had a sketchy history with governments and heads of states. One only needs to see the case of former US President Donald Trump. After using the platform as his personal whining machine for years, he now faces a lifetime ban on the site.
And with its apparent renewed focus on freedom of speech, Twitter is now embroiled in a tussle with the Indian government as well.
While Koo may never be able to surpass Twitter in terms of its reach and is most likely a fad that will fizzle out in a while, it has emerged as a rather strong rival. Much stronger than the other desi counterparts like Tooter, the series of unfortunate names notwithstanding.
Till we find out the yellow bird’s fate: “Keep kooing.”
https://theprint.in/opinion/pov/i-s...ar-bharats-own-koo-heres-what-i-found/604269/
I spent 48 hours on Atmanirbhar Bharat’s own Koo to get a taste of the new social media Kurukshetra. But unlike Twitter, it is no battleground, but just an echo chamber so far.
With more than 3 million users, Koo, however, is no joke, even if its name sounds like one.
The Indian social media knockoff, with its rather sad ‘sone ki chidiya’ icon, Koo is everything Twitter is not. And yet, it is also exactly like Twitter. An important distinction is that you ‘koo’ instead of tweet, and that too in up to 400 characters. The ballpark of avian references is rather persistent in this field, it seems.
An alternate reality
When I joined the app, to figure out what the fuss is about, I encountered its shady-looking privacy policy that was frankly enough to send anyone packing. As indicated by some reports, and what I saw myself, Koo stores all your personal data including name, age, marital status (why?), device location, etc. But they do say curiosity killed the cat, or in this case any hopes of data privacy.
Screengrab from Koo app | Rachel John
Then, the top recommendations on the app were Republic TV, and Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Amit Malviya and Piyush Goyal.
From then on, venturing into the app was like entering an alternate reality where certain users got their wish to ban voices that they disagreed with from Twitter. It is as if you are speaking and every single person in the room is nodding. No one disagrees and everything is shiny and beautiful on this Truman show.
The most popular accounts (kooers?) are named ‘The VedicRing of Fire’, ‘The Frustrated Indian’, ‘VedicKeeda’, and so on. And as the names suggest, these accounts represent quite an interesting amalgamation of extreme national pride, religious hate, and a lot of conspiracy theories.
Koo users can be broadly categorised into three groups:
The first is the Sushant Singh Rajput justice crusaders who seem to have migrated to the app after being steadily ignored everywhere else. Hashtags like #JusticeforSSR and #CBIPunishSSRKillers are quite common. And their dedication for the cause is so real that one account is even named ‘Any SSRians here?’
The second is the deshbhakt users. They koo every newspaper article, report, video and WhatsApp forward about Bharat and its ‘aatmanirbharta‘. These include die-hard fans of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress haters. There are constant evocations of Jawaharlal Nehru to blame him for everything, and Rahul Gandhi is also regularly called ‘pappu’ because there are hardly any Congress backers on the forum to challenge their remarks. But the defining principle all around is ‘hate all’ — Twitter, liberals, and secular-minded people. But without the target audience present there, it just feels like all the darts are just flying blind without gravity in a spaceship.
The third set includes Union ministers who are kooing about their work as usual. As if this bright yellow knockoff is the perfect substitute for Twitter, and I’m sure for some of them it really is. BJP IT cell in-charge Amit Malviya took full advantage of the 400 character limit to lecture Twitter on how it cannot “arrogate itself the right to sit in judgment”. Malviya’s koo was liked over 3,000 times and was ‘re-kooed’ more than 600 times.
The app is also rather persistent about its own Indian image and pride, down to the ‘voice of India’ claim on its homepage. Every time you open the app, it flashes the sign ‘made with pride in India’. And every second tweet from almost any popular account you may follow includes a mention of India, Atmanirbhar Bharat, proud Indian, Indian Army, and others.
You get the trend.
Giving Twitter competition
All of this is precisely why Koo can give Twitter stiff competition in India. It is basically the social media site that every hardcore, patriotic Bharatiya citizen ever wanted. And we all know there is no shortage of those on Twitter.
Koo was founded in March 2020 by Bengaluru-based Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka. It also won the AatmaNirbhar App Innovation Challenge organised by the government in August 2020.
According to its founder, “Koo is a platform that was formed to bring the voice of the Indian language speaker online. We truly believe in freedom of speech…In cases of life threat whether it is self-harm or threat to several lives we will abide by the law of land and will be the same irrespective of the govt in power.”
Now with the kerfuffle between the Modi government and Twitter in full swing, this principle has persuaded a lot of people.
There is a rather deliberate ecosystem being created on Koo, to break that other 70-year-old Nehruvian ecosystem. And if one is not remotely interested in any of the above, it is not the place for you.
Twitter and governments: A tale
Twitter has always had a sketchy history with governments and heads of states. One only needs to see the case of former US President Donald Trump. After using the platform as his personal whining machine for years, he now faces a lifetime ban on the site.
And with its apparent renewed focus on freedom of speech, Twitter is now embroiled in a tussle with the Indian government as well.
While Koo may never be able to surpass Twitter in terms of its reach and is most likely a fad that will fizzle out in a while, it has emerged as a rather strong rival. Much stronger than the other desi counterparts like Tooter, the series of unfortunate names notwithstanding.
Till we find out the yellow bird’s fate: “Keep kooing.”
https://theprint.in/opinion/pov/i-s...ar-bharats-own-koo-heres-what-i-found/604269/
I pray Modi also makes a CowBook and CowTube for these freaks.
